


The Ark

by Franzbibliothek



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Stuck in a Cabin in Winter fic, World War II, the hermitage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 07:43:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6648505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzbibliothek/pseuds/Franzbibliothek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where during World War II Bucky Barnes is the Russian superhero the Winter Soldier who is partnered with Captain America. The war looks like it will be ending in a matter of months, and Captain America and the Winter Soldier get a chance to discuss what the future might look like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ark

“Well Cap, I think this is our stop.” The Winter Soldier called out above the roar of the run-away train that was heading straight for a broken bridge. Steve grabbed his shield from where it was embedded in the train wall, ignoring the body of a cut-down Hydra soldier.

“But will the porter take our luggage?” Steve asked, the artifact they’d been sent to retrieve is his hand. The Winter Soldier laughed and swung his arm around Steve so they wouldn’t be separated as they jumped a short height into the powdery snow below.

Steve lay there for a moment and thought about the snow angels and snowball fights of Brooklyn. It would have been nice having the Winter Soldier there, it occurred to him. Between the two of them and their fantastic aim, they could have taken on the whole neighborhood.

“You alright Captain?” The Winter Soldier asked, sitting up.

“Yup.” Steve said and placed the artifact in the specialized container that Howard Stark had created for it. It pulsed blue for a moment before the lid shut on it. There was a time that Steve would have thought these kinds of things only happened between the pages of an _Astounding Magazine_. Well look at him now.

“There should be a safe house somewhere around here.” The Winter Soldier said as he bent over his map and compass, not paying any mind to the fiery sight as the train ran out of track and careened into a ravine with a wild roar that was soon carried away by the wind. “It’s this way, come on.”

Holding hands like children they made their way in the direction the Winter Soldier chose and in a numbing hour or so they arrived. Calling it a house was a bit of an exaggeration. Steve was reminded suddenly of the witch’s cottage from Hansel and Gretel, the snow like thick icing covering everything.

Steve quickly broke the lock on the door with his shield. There was nothing worth stealing in the one-room house where even the battered table in the corner wobbled on its uneven legs. But the walls kept out the snow, if not the wind’s wailing. It was a bit disappointing though to find no wood for the fireplace.

In short order they undressed and spread their clothes out as best they could before going about making a nest out of the blankets and extra gear they had brought with them. There was no bashfulness as they clung together to keep warm. The only struggle was how to lie comfortably for the both of them. In the end Steve found his back tucked against the Winter Soldier’s front, and took advantage of their position to put his ice cold feet on his partner’s calves. Between the two of them, the bedroll soon became as snug as if they were back in Italy.

Despite all they had done today, and the doubtless long day they would have tomorrow Steve found he couldn’t sleep. Not right away. Something about the futuristic neon blue of the device they had captured niggled on his mind. Something he had been putting off.

“If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?” Steve asked. The regular troops whenever they were with them could hardly speak of anything else, their plans and their sweethearts back at home.

The Winter Soldier would offhandedly mention a sister who had been living with relatives even before the war. Steve wanted to look Arnie up as soon as he could (if he was still alive) and take Agent Carter dancing at the fanciest place he could find (and buy her all the drinks she claims to need from keeping the two of them from dying). Beyond that the only person Steve couldn’t wait to see after the fighting was done, was the Winter Soldier. Except a different Winter Soldier, whose forehead wasn’t lined with worry when he thought Steve couldn’t see.

But now with this artifact, and hearing that the Allies were nearly to Berlin itself suddenly the reality that the war may end. The war may end and by some grace of God the Winter Soldier and Captain America could be alive to see it… He knew he should be excited, but truly he just felt tired.

“Well you know I was thinking of going to see the Grand Canyon.” The Winter Soldier said. Steve actually turned and raised an eyebrow, the Winter Soldier shrugged.

“My father saw it once, said it put everything into perspective.” And it seemed impossible to Steve in that moment that the canyon with a hot yellow sun shining down on it could possibly exist when in every direction was nothing but cold and snow.

“I’ve always wanted to see the Hermitage.” Steve admitted after some silence.

“There’s no need to try to appeal to my national pride, Cap. You can say the Pacific Ocean like any true American.”

“It’s not that, it’s the- I looked at books. When I was sick, I looked at books and there were pictures of it: Rembrandts, Monets, Rubens. The book said you needed to spend at least a month there, better yet a year. I thought about it a lot, a sick kid who had never left the city, a place you could wander around in for a year and always find something new.” He’d wondered if there would be museums in heaven, whether he’d get a chance to see all the old masters that he hadn’t while stuck on an old mattress in Brooklyn.

The Winter Soldier kissed him then. He kissed him and pushed Steve onto his back, hands on either side of his head as he pressed their bodies together. Chests, stomachs, thighs. The warmth of the bedroll became stifling as Steve felt his blush spill downward. Despite the number of times they did this that was something that Steve couldn’t control, his blush and the way he whined into the Winter Soldier’s mouth when his hands pushed Steve’s thighs together giving him a tighter space to rut into.

This wasn’t really the time for this kind of thing, but years of war had taught Steve that there never really is a good time. The Winter Soldier’s voice hitched as came, his hand on Steve’s cock quickened its pace to bring him over the edge. The way the Winter Soldier looked, only illuminated by the barest sliver of light from the shuttered window, shadowed and intent made him something more beautiful than any subject ever captured in any museum. Steve closed his eyes as he came and vowed he would learn how to use oil paints once the war was over.

“Those American comics of yours that paint me as your kid-sidekick really have no idea.” The Winter Soldier breathed into Steve’s hair after they had cleaned as well as they could.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Just filled with questions aren’t you?” The Winter Soldier said, settling back down against Steve, lazily mouthing at his broad shoulders. “I guess I've got nowhere else to be.”

Steve squirmed for a moment, ostensibly from how the Winter Soldier’s face unshaven for a few days felt against bare skin, but it was the warmth in his words more than anything. “Why do the other Russians call you ‘The American?’” Steve asked.

The Winter Soldier lightly nipped the back of his neck. “I didn’t realize you spoke Russian.”

“Not much, just enough to-“

“Spy on me.” The Winter Soldier said flatly, but his arms were still around Steve’s waist.

“We both have our orders.” Steve noticed sometimes his bag was arranged differently, the extra creases in his letters. “but you know I would never betray you.” He had to know that, had to know it after so many dangers faced together. The Winter Soldier turned so that they were lying back-to-back.

“My mother had a particular knack for shooting Germans.” The Winter Soldier said and there was a savagery in it.

“So that’s where you get it from.” Steve said. His back moved and Steve realized he was laughing silently.

“My father was an American, a soldier. Did you know they sent them to Russia at the end of the Great War? Apparently my father got separated and was only saved from freezing to death by a Russian girl who insisted that he was her prisoner. I suppose he fell in love. With her, with Russia, with the Great Cause. I was born a couple days north of Moscow. Mother would teach us how to shoot, our father would sing us lullabies in English. That made me useful, useful enough not to end up one more poor fallen comrade for the Motherland.”

“Oh.” And there was the Winter Soldier laid out before him. Steve wished he had something to bare before him. To put them on the same level. But there was not much to tell.

“My father was a soldier too, but died when I was little. My Ma raised me, she’s dead now too. There’s not much else to say.” They laid next to each other in silence, naked.

“They really did pick the perfect subject didn’t they?” The Winter Soldier said softly. “No one to notice whether you came home from war or not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think the Nazis are so entirely removed from humanity that our governments couldn’t learn from them? How many of those labs we broken into have been packed up and sent back to our homes. How many of those scientists we captured are sitting at comfortable desks right now, giving lectures to eager note-takers?”

For a moment it seemed so hopeless. All these years of fighting and bloodshed, meeting someone just to hear days later that they had died choking on mud. All to stop a great evil. Only to find that it has already crept into the very people trying to stop it. For a horrible second Steve could see it, the Winter Soldier tied down, stuck full of needles. But not a sacrifice to keep the world safe, but as something to sell to the highest bidder.

An army of super-soldiers. Five years ago Steve had heard that phrase and his heart had swelled at the potential for the good of the world. Now he heard it and Steve felt like he was going to be sick.

“Ah Cap,” the Winter Soldier stroked his hair. “I’ve given you a bad turn. You don’t have to worry, we’ll just have to look out for each other. We’ll see the Grand Canyon and then the Hermitage, once all the paintings are back, and after that we’ll find some nice place in France where we can drink wine and you’ll sell your paintings.”

“And what would you do?” Steve asked.

“Be your professional muse of course. The French I’ve heard are altogether far more civilized about these kinds of things.”

Steve lay there for a moment and savored the idea, the small apartment, the smell of paint, and the Winter Soldier’s face softened by light filtered through white curtains. It was like how he and Arnie would imagine living in a castle once Steve became a famous artist and Arnie a world renown actor. They would whisper these fantasies to one another under a blanket so it muffled out Arnie’s sister’s hungry cries.

“We’d get bored in two weeks.”

The Winter Soldier clasped his hand and squeezed, and he pressed a tired smile to the back of Steve's neck. “Ah, but what a two weeks it would be.”

“I’d have to find something else to call you besides the Winter Soldier.”

There was a silence.

“You could call me Bucky. When I was little, that was what my father called me. After an old friend of his, the only part of his American ways he couldn’t leave behind.”

“Bucky?” Steve turned over and smiled, even if he could barely make out the features of the man next to him.

The Winter Soldier put a finger to his lips. “Only when the war is over, Cap.”

“Then you’ll have to call me Steve.”

They kissed lazily for a long time, just soft mouths moving over each other as if to verify the other’s existence, until finally Bucky fell asleep. But Steve couldn’t quite drift off and from his vantage he could look through the crack in the shutters to where snow was still falling, enveloping the cabin in a thick blanket of winter.

**Author's Note:**

> So I wasn't planning on posting this until I had written another fic in the same universe which would explain what was going on. But I haven't got around to writing anything else in the same universe, and on re-read it seemed to stand on its own pretty OK (I hope). Plus I hate exposition. Let me know if you guys actually do want something more out of this universe.
> 
> Anyway, it's kind of a hodge podge of a bunch of stuff that I like, generally I was inspired by the Russian Ark which is a great movie and you should definitely see if you have any interest in Russia, or art, or museums. The beginning is a reference to Don Bluth's Anastasia because why not? (Obviously nod to Mark Waid's Man Out of Time)
> 
> History note, as I stumbled upon entirely by accident, America did in fact invade Russia at the end of WWI in a largely criticized move referred to as the Polar Bear Expedition, that is one of those things that was far less awesome than it sounds. Apparently there were like five American bodies that were never accounted for, so I get vague historical possibility points. Kind of. Also I love lady Russian soldiers which were around in both WWI and WWII. 
> 
> shout out to ibroketuesday whose moody weather boner is even bigger than mine!


End file.
